Wrangling the Cowboy's Heart

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “You deserve it.” Mandie patted him on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. “Is your mother still here? I was so sure I saw her with you.”

  “No. She’s gone, too.” Finn’s smile became even more forced. Coming on the heels of Jodie’s current defection, he didn’t want the reminder of how capricious the women in his life were.

  Mandie tightened her hand on his shoulder. “Sorry to hear that. She called me a while back to apologize for leaving me in the lurch. But truth to tell, I’m glad she did. Jodie was amazing.”

  Finn just nodded, feeling more weary than he had in years.

  The evening was not supposed to begin and end the way it had, bracketed by confessions from his mother and Jodie.

  He needed time and space to process all these revelations.

  He needed to get home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The darkness that filled the house was eased by the reading light above the chair Jodie had retreated to after she sent her text to Finn. She had changed into a caftan she’d bought in Israel and a pair of leggings she had picked up from a thrift store. She had packed her suitcase.

  Now what? Was she really leaving tomorrow?

  Jodie closed her eyes, massaging her temples. When she’d seen the disbelief in his eyes, when she’d heard him express it, she’d known she couldn’t stick around.

  It had been hard enough to deal with that from Lane.

  Seeing it on Finn’s face had cut like a knife.

  She wasn’t sure she could stay. She would have to wait until morning to talk to her father’s lawyer and find out what the implications would be if she left before her time was up.

  You need to give Finn a chance.

  For what? To tell her yet again how wonderful her father was? Make her feel she wasn’t worthy of being believed?

  The questions dogged her and she got up to make herself some hot chocolate. She filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove to boil and scooped some powder into a large mug she had gotten from Aunt Laura for one of her birthdays. It had a picture of a swaybacked horse staring back at her, and below it the caption, I’m Built for Comfort, Not Speed.

  Aunt Laura.

  Should she call her?

  The clock showed her it was too late to do that. Maybe tomorrow morning.

  Jodie stirred the boiling water into the cocoa, watching it melt. She wouldn’t sleep tonight anyway. Each time she closed her eyes, she imagined Finn’s face as she’d told him about her father. Lifting her mug, she blew on the hot chocolate, and through the steam looked over at her father’s office.

  Her dad had done so much to her. Broken so much in her life. She could hear, like an echo, his accusations. Little liar. Little sneak. Useless little girl.

  She felt the fear and anger build up as she wondered how it would end.

  Jodie had told herself she wasn’t going to cry, but the unwelcome tears coursed down her face.

  Her eyes fell on the envelope she had set on the counter this afternoon.

  Before everything had fallen apart.

  She needed a distraction, so she grabbed it, took it to the dining room and sat down at the table. She set her mug aside and opened the large envelope. As she pulled the stack of papers out, a bundle of canceled checks came with them.

  The top one was dated the year she, her mother and her sisters left the farm. And it was made out to her mom. Puzzled, Jodie riffled through the rest of the checks. Every month, on the first, her father had sent money. When her mother died, the checks were made out to their grandmother.

  Jodie felt her world shift when she saw them. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had ever said anything or even hinted at the fact that their father had sent them money.

  She set the checks aside and picked up the papers he had been working on. Once more she felt a tiny jolt when she saw her father’s handwriting. Neat, tidy and upright. Just like the man he presented to the world. The man Finn believed he was.

  The first letter was addressed to Lauren. The second to Erin. These Jodie slipped into envelopes for her sisters, resisting the temptation to read them. They weren’t for her eyes.

  The remaining five were addressed to her.

  “Dear Jodie,” the first one began. Then a bunch of lines were crossed out. A few lines stating how hard it was to see her behave the way she did were also scratched through.

  The next letter was almost identical, as was the third. Puzzled, she read through the marked-up lines. More about her behavior and how hard it was to see her challenge him all the time. She almost didn’t read the fifth one, but when she took it out she didn’t see any writing scratched out.

  “Dear Jodie,” she read.

  I’m not good at this kind of thing. Never was. But I’m dying and that has made me think about things. Eternity is staring me in the face and it’s making me look back at what I did. I wasn’t a good father to you. I was an angry man. Your mother used to cheat on me and for a while I thought you weren’t mine.

  Jodie’s heart did a double flip at her father’s blunt words.

  She tried to make sense of them, then shook her head as if to rearrange her thoughts and read on.

  “I found out that wasn’t true. I confess. I did a DNA test to find out.”

  DNA test?

  She set the letter aside, rubbing her temples. It was too much for one night. Too much to absorb.

  She got up and walked around the house. It was as if her entire world had been tossed around like a box of blocks and she couldn’t put it back the way it was.

  She wanted to call her sister, but hesitated. Who knew what was in Lauren’s letter?

  Please, Lord...

  The feeble plea fell from her lips, and as she made another round she saw the corner of her father’s Bible poking out of a pile of books.

  Like a desert wanderer thirsting for nourishment, Jodie pulled it from the stack and dropped onto the floor.

  Her father always read the Bible when they were here. It wasn’t unfamiliar.

  She turned to Psalms, remembering their rhythms and cadences. The cries for help that often mirrored her own. Which was the one the pastor read on Sunday?

  She turned to Psalm 32.

  Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.

  Blessed. Forgiven.

  She and her father had had an adversarial relationship. He had always accused and never believed. She had started breaking the rules because her father hadn’t believed her when she’d said she hadn’t done anything, and would punish her anyway.

  But reading this reminded her that she had been looking to the wrong relationship for affirmation.

  She thought back to what the pastor had said about how God offered forgiveness. About the unconditional love God offered in Christ, and a chance to start new.

  Was this chance now?

  And Finn? Where did he fit?

  She thought again of the look on his face.

  Did it matter that he believed her?

  She covered her own face with her hands. “It shouldn’t, but it does so much. I just need someone to be on my side,” she whispered.

  She turned back to the passage. You are my hiding place.

  “Forgive me, Lord,” she prayed. “Forgive me for moving away from You. I confess I haven’t lived the kind of life I should and I have been angry with my father, but...” She stopped there, trying not to find an excuse for what she had done. She had made her own choices. “All I can say is I was wrong. Forgive me and help me to trust in You. To know that You are my hiding place. Help me to trust You and to know You are all I need.”

  She stopped again, and a gentle pea
ce suffused her.

  Her life hadn’t changed, but she knew Jesus was with her, offering her hope and forgiveness. Taking her as she was.

  She stayed a moment, then got up, still holding the Bible, and brought it back to the table and her father’s unfinished letter. She had to see this to the end.

  She picked the letter up again, the paper crackling in the silence, and read on.

  Apologizing about what happened to your hand won’t change anything. If I had believed you when you said you were leaving the party, maybe things would have been different. I was an angry man and we always fought. I let my temper get the best of me too many times. Every time I hit you, I felt horrible, but didn’t know how to fix it. I guess I’m trying now. I know God has forgiven me for what I did, but that’s not enough. I want you to forgive me, too.

  His signature was scrawled across the bottom and then, under that, two words. “I’m sorry.”

  Jodie sat back, her heart thundering in her chest.

  Her father? The never wrong Keith McCauley, asking for her forgiveness? Telling her he was sorry? Words she’d never in her whole life thought he would say, let alone write down?

  If it weren’t for the fact that she recognized her father’s handwriting, she would have doubted this even came from him.

  She read it again, as if to make sure, but the words hadn’t changed. Confusion did battle with vindication as she set the letter down beside the canceled checks he had sent to her mother and grandmother.

  Had Jodie looked at her life through the wrong end of binoculars all these years? Making things distant and distorted? What do I do with this? she wondered.

  Stumbling toward grace...

  The words returned to her and she tried to apply them to her father’s life, catching a momentary glimpse of the man Finn had seen.

  Why couldn’t she have seen that side of him? Why had Finn been given that privilege and not her?

  Thoughts of Finn mingled with the new revelations from her father.

  Finn.

  A sharp ache pressed against her chest, making her stomach roil and her head spin.

  Tears threatened, but she fought them down. She had promised herself she would never shed tears over another man. But Finn wasn’t just another man.

  He was the man she had dared weave impossible dreams around.

  Her lips trembled and her hands clenched and then her chest heaved.

  And the tears she had fought valiantly to keep at bay flowed.

  * * *

  Leaving tomorrow. Need a break.

  Finn tossed his cell phone aside and dropped onto the couch, looking around his living room, a feeling of emptiness gripping him.

  Since Jodie had sent him that terse text, he didn’t know what to think.

  She couldn’t even stick around to find out how he felt about what she had told him.

  He laid his head back and closed his eyes, wishing he knew what to do.

  Part of him wanted to go running over to the Rocking M Ranch. To plead with Jodie to stay. But he had done that so often with his mother, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to do it again. If Jodie didn’t want to stay, he couldn’t make her.

  Could he?

  And what about what she’d told him? About Keith? What should he do with that?

  He tried to fit his memories with what Jodie had said. Yes, Keith had a temper, but to hit his own daughter? Keith had helped Finn so much. How could he be the same person Jodie had described?

  But if Finn didn’t believe her, where did that leave them?

  He walked to the darkened window, his ghostly reflection layered over the yard, which was lit up by the light at the peak of the barn.

  What do I do with this, Lord? he prayed. Keith has done so much for me. Is it disloyal to believe what Jodie told me?

  Finn let that thought settle a moment. Then his phone rang and his heart jumped. Jodie?

  It was Vic.

  “Hey, buddy,” Finn said when he answered. “What can I do for you?”

  “Sorry for calling so late, but I’m not sure what’s happening. I just got a strange phone call from Jodie.”

  Finn stood up straight, clutching the phone. “What did she want?”

  “She was wondering if I could come and feed the horses tomorrow. Is she going somewhere?”

  Ice bloomed in Finn’s chest. Leaving tomorrow. Need a break.

  He needed to talk to her about what she’d told him. And she just wanted to leave?

  How pathetic was he, thinking that Jodie would have a change of heart? She had told him many times that she didn’t like to stick around. That she needed to keep moving.

  He had foolishly believed that he could make her change.

  “What gives? I thought you were training them,” Vic continued. “Getting them ready for her to sell privately.”

  “When did she call you?”

  “Just a few minutes ago.”

  Finn looked at the clock. It was nearing midnight. “I can’t believe she phoned you this late.”

  “I was up anyway. Dean’s not feeling good. Been struggling with a lot of pain lately.”

  In spite of his own troubles Finn sensed the tension in his friend. Vic felt responsible for Dean’s rodeo accident, even though Finn had tried again and again to convince him otherwise. He also knew that Vic, who had been leasing Keith’s place, hoped to purchase it eventually, and now that was all up in the air.

  “So do you think she still wants to sell the ranch?” Vic asked. “’Cause Keith and I had an agreement and I’m not sure how hard to push that.”

  “Did you get it in writing?”

  His friend sighed. “No. I thought he might have told the girls. That guy was hard to pin down.”

  And hard to figure out, Finn thought.

  He fought down his confusion, not sure what he could or should say. But he needed to talk to someone, if only to get their reaction, as well.

  “Jodie told me something that I don’t know what to do with,” Finn said.

  “You sound worried.”

  He looked over at the mantel, at the pictures of his mother and Denise. The girl Keith had thought was perfect, as opposed to his daughter.

  He told me you were too good for me.

  Had he really told his own daughter that?

  “What was your take on Keith McCauley?” Finn asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Humor me,” he said, dragging one hand over his face. “Give me your honest assessment of him.”

  “I know you thought the sun rose and set on the guy, and I liked him, too, but if you want the truth, I always thought he was kind of hard-nosed. A bit harsh. Wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side.”

  Finn knew this, but hearing Vic say it in light of what Jodie had told him gave him another twist on things.

  “Sorry, but you asked for my honest opinion,” Vic continued. “There were times when I saw him lose it with the cows and was glad I wasn’t the one he was mad at. Like I said, he helped you out a lot, and he helped me, too, but he had a hard edge, that’s for sure.”

  As Vic spoke, Finn heard the truth in what he said, even as part of him fought it, feeling disloyal.

  Had he been hero-worshipping the man? Had he been blind?

  He used to hit me. Sometimes with an open hand. Sometimes with a fist.

  “What’s up?” Vic asked.

  “I can’t talk about it now. I’ll tell you someday.”

  “And what about the horses?”

  Finn scratched his forehead, trying to figure out what to do. “Just wait a day or two before you come and get them.”

  He hung up, then picked up his Bible. Right now he needed to set his feet on a solid foundation. What Vic had told
him wasn’t new, but combined with what Jodie had said, it altered his view of Keith.

  Finn thought back to other things Jodie had said, before her revelation. How her father hadn’t believed her when he’d picked her up at Jaden’s party. How they used to have to sneak around when they were dating because she didn’t want her dad to find out.

  Finn had thought it was because she was ashamed of him, when it turned out she was probably afraid of Keith.

  He suddenly recalled a model airplane he had put together once. His mother was away and he’d been by himself. He had gone ahead without the instructions, and when he saw it wasn’t going the way it was supposed to, he’d started pushing pieces to fit, discarding the ones that didn’t work.

  Had he done the same with his relationship with Keith? Had he pushed things to fit, turning Keith into the father he had lost? Had that twisted his perceptions of the man, turning him into what was missing in his life?

  Had he been blind to Keith’s faults because he’d needed so badly for him to be good? So he could have someone to look up to?

  Finn thought of what Vic had just said and knew that Keith had a temper, and that he was only human. But he wanted so badly for Keith to be what he needed him to be.

  He looked over at the pictures of Denise again and, with a smile, realized that even she was only human, and he couldn’t compare her to Jodie. She hadn’t lived the life Jodie had.

  As he gazed at Denise, he knew he wasn’t looking for someone like her anymore.

  He was looking for someone like Jodie.

  Chapter Seventeen

  You should stay.

  Jodie ignored the nagging voice as she carried her suitcase out to the car the next morning.

  Stop running. Go talk to Finn. Explain.

  Jodie’s steps faltered as she thought of him. Explain what? she wondered, yanking open the door of her car. Give him the gory details? Would that make a difference? Would he believe her?

  She tossed her suitcase onto the seat, then looked back at the house.

  She’d left her father’s letter behind, needing some space from it. Some distance while she tried to think what to do about it.